Medical School Interview Questions: Preparing for These Is NOT an Option

You MUST Know the Answers to These Questions

If you are looking for medical school interview questions before your interview, you are on the right track. All top medical school applicants, most likely than not, prepared beforehand to answer and ask the right questions. Being prepared is the key for success when it comes to any interviews, especially medical school interviews.

The best way to prepare is to find out the questions prior to the interview, and then compose good answers for them. There are two types of questions:

The general questions that pretty much all interviewers will ask (see the list below).

The school-specific questions that will require a bit of more research on your part.

I cannot say this enough: If you want to have a great medical school interview, you must prepare for the questions.

To start out with your interview preparation, the following are general medical school interview questions and scenarios that you absolutely must have answers for:

Tell me about yourself.

Tell me about your strengths.

Tell me about your weaknesses.

What are your hobbies? What do you do outside of studying?

How are you a leader? Give an example.

Why do you want to become a doctor?

Do you want to specialize? If so, what do you want to do?

Why do you want to attend this school?

What health care experience have you had?

Be willing to discuss anything in your application.

Be willing to discuss about the current environment of health care.

Be willing to discuss anything weakness in your application.

What will you do if you are not accepted into medical school?

Keep in mind that these are not comprehensive; they are only the general questions. The interviewer could ask about anything; it is a spontaneous process. But the questions I listed above are most likely going to appear in any medical school interview.

Once you are prepared for the general interview questions, research what particular questions each school will ask. The best source to find those detailed interview questions are through SDN (Student Doctor Network). And I strongly recommend that you make this extra effort because it will separate a good interview from a great interview. Take a look at my SDN interview feedback guide on how to navigate the site to find specific questions for each school.

Question for You to Ask

Preparing to answer medical school interview questions will take most of the work. But there is a bit more you must do besides answering questions. You must prepare questions to ask your interviewer. There are two benefits for asking good questions:

You prove that you did research on the school and that will impress the interviewer.

You get more information to pick the right school for you (if you get more than once acceptance letter).

Now that it is established that asking good questions is also necessary for a successful medical school interview, let’s move on. The following are some general questions you can ask the interviewer:

What is the school curriculum like in pre-clinical and clinical years?

What research opportunities are there?

How do students in the school perform on the national board examinations?

Unlike the questions above, these are just suggestions and NOT mandatory. The questions should stem from your own curiosity about the school. If you are on the fence about attending a school or not, the answers you get could tip you one way or another.

Make sure there is at least one focused question, specific to the school. Show your interviewer you did your research and you are a serious applicant.

By preparing good answers and good questions, assuming you have competitive grades and scores, you will get into medical school.

This article is part of the Get into Medical School series. Click on the link if you want more tips and hints about getting accepted into medical school.